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Maintaining Sprinkler Systems Helps Conserve Water |
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Media advisory
issued August 1, 2002, effective immediately. Maintaining Sprinkler Systems Helps Conserve Water ARDMORE, Okla. — Sprinkler systems are a time-saving tool for property owners, but they can be water-wasters if they're not working correctly — and at this hot, dry time of year, it's especially important to use water properly. "How many times have you seen water from a sprinkler system running down the street during the day, or even during a rain shower?" asked Dooly Barlow, a horticulturist at the Noble Foundation. "What about a sprinkler head broken off and water shooting up out of the ground? Sprinkler system owners need to correct these problems in order to conserve water." Barlow recommends an "irrigation audit," watching the sprinkler system stations go through a run time, to determine if a system is functioning like it should. While an irrigation audit done by a certified irrigation specialist would take into account the soil type, plant selection, amount of shade in the landscape, and potential evapotranspiration (PET) rate to make the correct recommendation, property owners can perform a simple irrigation audit themselves. "If you observe your irrigation system when it is cycling, you can tell your neighbors that you are doing your part to manage this precious natural resource," he said. "The object of a sprinkler system is to put on enough water so that the soil is moist down to roughly 6 inches in the root zone." Start the irrigation audit with a visual inspection of the head performance. Look for misaligned irrigation heads — for example, water spraying into the street or driveway, heads not turning properly or missing heads. "In some instances, heads have been vandalized or accidentally damaged by vehicle tires. These must be repaired before proper pressure can be supplied to other heads," Barlow said. The next step is to check for correct pressure needed to deliver the amount of water required for proper coverage. Finally, calculate the amount of water and the uniformity of the system. This is completed by randomly catching the amount of water each station delivers. For instance, in station one of your irrigation system, five small cans placed randomly caught the following amounts of water: 0.5, 0.6, 0.4, 0.5 and 0.5 inches. This totals 2.5 inches of water, which divided by the five cans is .5 inch per cycle time. "You timed the station one cycle at 30 minutes. So if .5 inch is applied in 30 minutes, it would take an hour to receive an inch of water," he said. "The acid test for an irrigation system is identifying how deep the water is soaking into the root zone, so use a shovel to dig into the root zone and check the depth of moisture. If it is two inches, the cycle will need to run an extended time to reach six inches." Barlow reminds property owners that automated sprinkler systems should not run during the day. Watering should be done in the early morning instead of during the heat of the day because water loss to heat evaporation is higher during the heat of the day than in the morning. "Let's maintain the proper moisture level in our soils and keep our plant life alive and free from moisture stress. We should make these corrections before our precious natural resource is banned from use in our landscape, as it has been in other areas of the country," he said. ### Photo: The Samuel Roberts Noble Foundation, headquartered in Ardmore, Okla., is a non-profit organization conducting agricultural, forage biotechnological, and plant biology research; providing grants to numerous non-profit charitable, educational and health organizations; and assisting farmers and ranchers through educational and consultative agricultural programs. To learn more, visit the Noble Foundation Web site at http://www.noble.org. More news releases available at www.noble.org/Press_Release |
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